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Written by PARWCC Leadership Team on . Posted in Blog, Weekly Newsletter.

 

12 Soft Skills Worth Mentioning

Written by John Suarez on . Posted in Blog, Résumé Writing.

Like you, I’ve seen many lists of the soft skills employers are looking for. Most of the time, they say the same things with minor variations that read more like category labels than actual behaviors. What are the REAL soft skills, the ones they don’t put on lists, that people should be working on? Based on my experience in the workplace, this might be a great place to start:

  1. Knowing When Not to Speak

A surprising number of careers stall because people confuse participation with value. High performers often know when a meeting is drifting, when a debate is unwinnable, when leadership is emotionally attached to a decision, or when silence preserves credibility. A person who can calmly say one useful thing instead of 15 mediocre things becomes memorable very fast.

  1. Emotional Load-Bearing

Every workplace has people who create emotional weather and people who stabilize it. The second group gets promoted. This means not panicking publicly, not amplifying chaos, not making every inconvenience existential, and staying usable under pressure. In many organizations, reliability under stress matters more than brilliance under ideal conditions.

  1. Managing Up Without Looking Political

Most people are either submissive toward authority or reflexively oppositional. But very few know how to disagree tactfully, give leadership useful information, protect a boss from avoidable embarrassment, or influence decisions without ego battles. 

  1. Understanding Group Energy

Some people walk into a room and unintentionally lower everyone’s cognitive bandwidth. Others increase it. People in the second group know how to reduce friction, clarify confusion, keep momentum moving, avoid emotional contamination, and help people feel smarter, calmer, and more effective. It’s no surprise that organizations become quietly dependent on these people.

  1. Recovering Normally from Mistakes

One of the biggest hidden professional skills is not becoming psychologically dramatic after being corrected. Employers notice people who can absorb feedback without spiraling, apologize cleanly, adjust behavior quickly, and move on without resentment theater. A shocking amount of workplace dysfunction comes from people defending their ego instead of solving the problem.

  1. Social Range

A very underrated ability is being able to comfortably talk to people across class, age, education, and status differences. The employee who can naturally interact with executives, front-line workers, customers, technical staff, and older or younger employees becomes a communication hub. This matters enormously in leadership, sales, HR, education, healthcare, operations, and customer-facing work.

  1. Detecting the Real Problem

When a manager says, “We need better communication,” sometimes it actually means that someone is unreliable. Or people don’t trust each other. Or conflict is being avoided. Or nobody wants accountability. The real skill — underlying pattern recognition — is part of a career acceleration formula. Solve for what’s real. (NOTE: The em-dash was MY idea!)

  1. Being Easy to Help

This sounds small. But people who advance tend to accept coaching, implement suggestions, show visible improvement, and make mentors feel effective. Difficult and high-maintenance personalities exhaust the people trying to support them. A mentor’s internal thought process matters: “If I invest in this person, will it go somewhere?”

  1. Strategic Self-Awareness

Not “self-esteem.” Not “authenticity.” Accurate self-awareness. Things like knowing how you come across, what environments weaken you, what strengths are actually marketable, when you’re intimidating people, when you’re boring people, when you’re oversharing, or when you’re under-communicating. Many careers plateau because people only know their intentions, not their impact.

  1. Professional Detachment

The ability to care deeply about work…without emotionally fusing your identity to every outcome. People with strong professional detachment navigate politics better, handle criticism better, negotiate better, and avoid burnout longer. Ironically, they often perform better because fear isn’t driving every interaction. Lawyers, surgeons, crisis managers, and experienced HR professionals often develop this instinctively. You almost have to.

  1. Knowing What Actually Creates Value

Many employees optimize for looking busy or sounding smart. But high-trust professionals learn what problems truly matter, what executives secretly care about, which metrics are theater, and which fires actually threaten the organization. That level of discretion is rare and worth caring about.

  1. Timing

Knowing when to push v. when to wait. Knowing when to escalate v. when to let an idea mature. Knowing when a boss is receptive, or when a team is exhausted. Knowing when change is politically possible. The same idea delivered at the wrong time can damage a career. At the right time, it can define one.

 

Whereas a typical soft skills list often describes pleasantness, this one includes a combination of traits that involve emotional regulation, social perception, calibrated communication, judgment, resilience, and situational awareness. If the question was “Tell me about your strengths?” or “What separates you from your peers?”, any one of these would stand out as a memorable answer. 

In a world where sameness gets you overlooked, train your clients to uniquely navigate résumé bullets and interview questions. You have a license to think outside the box, and to help your clients do the same.

Where Quality Resides

Written by Don Orlando on . Posted in Blog, Résumé Writing.

“Quality, relevant content can’t be spotted by an algorithm, nor by AI. You can’t subscribe to it. You can’t download it. You need people—actual human beings—to create or curate it.”

     Kristina Halvorson, “Content Strategy for the Web”

 

It may be the toughest job you have: making sure you always deliver the very best quality. There are two parts to that challenge.

The first is a seeming paradox. The more clients you have, the bigger your bank account. That would be great…if only it would last. 

Soon, there never seems to be enough time. You knew you should keep up with bios and other advanced documents. You just didn’t have the time. 

You kept meaning to get up to speed on LinkedIn’s ever-changing interface. There were just too many résumés to write.

Then clients start to ask for products and services you’re uncertain about. AI may be the leading candidate. Your business starts to fall off. It’s sliding toward failure.

Volume does not drive quality over time. Not for your clients. Not for you. Not for our industry.

The second challenge can be difficult as well. Which measure of quality is most important? The question is nearly complete. It should read which measure is most important…to the clients. What defines his optimum experience?

The operative words are “most important…to the clients.” They really don’t want a résumé. They want a job. They really don’t want the formula for a great interview. They want careers. They don’t want endless “guidance” on how to find “keywords.”

This is where your wisdom comes into play. Not all our clients really know what it takes to get a job or land a great career. If they did, they wouldn’t need us. 

Making matters worse, some clients think they know what it takes. The executive who initially insists on a one-page résumé fits in that category.

Clients should rely on us to guide them across all the stepping stones to the best possible outcome. 

Consider the résumé, for example. When a typical client comes to you, they often think the résumé is a “magic” document. They’ve heard (somewhere) résumés are somehow influenced by an ever-changing mass of obscure “rules” nobody can define.

When they see the great résumé you wrote, they tell you, “it captures me completely!” They see their true worth for the first time. No wonder it gives them confidence. 

Now we uncover the true definition of quality. Quality appears at the intersection of your wisdom and skills and your clients’ certain knowledge of their value.

Your wisdom about a résumé starts with your knowledge of its three roles and missions: 

  • The first role and mission is to prove to the hiring manager (who is rarely in HR and should never be an algorithm), your client will make the company a lot more money than it will take to hire them. This proof should appear in the first line and consist of observable behaviors. 

No room for glittering collections of traits, responsibilities, and minimum standard skills. 

I am privileged to know a hardworking, great communicator, an outstanding “people person,” with wonderful communications skills. That’s my West Highland White Terrier, Archie! 

  • The second role and mission is to guide outstanding interviews, enticing the interviewer to ask questions that interest both him and your clients. The challenge-context-action-results stories you write are just what gets the ball rolling.

You’ve given your clients all they need to transform the too common interrogation most untrained interviewers fall back on into the collaboration both parties want.

  • The third role and mission is to help your clients negotiate salary, (or commissions), perks, benefits, and severance. Because you have quantified the results in your stories in dollars, you’ve equipped your clients to guide the interviewer to go beyond cost to see value.

Consider the candidate of choice who appears to want $8,000 more than the interviewer had in mind.

If the interviewer is paying attention, he knows your client isn’t just targeting his company. Yes, the hiring decision maker could pick a less qualified applicant who will accept the lower salary. Meanwhile, your client is targeting all the interviewer’s competition. If your client brings in a minuscule contract—say $10,000—the interviewer’s $8,000 “savings” will cost only $10,000!

It will dawn on the hiring decision maker how little time it will take your clients to make up the $8,000.

Use the intersection that defines quality to build tests that optimize the client’s job seeking experience. I suggest these:

  • Test number 1: Did I unintentionally give my client too much, or two little, credit for what they have done? We must both stand behind the integrity of what I write. If a part of my draft fails that test, it’s my fault; I must not have taken the best notes. I was sure the client said they saved their company ten million dollars. Turned out, in my haste, I added an extra zero: it was a one million, not ten million dollar savings!
  • Test number 2: Has my client thought of another success story? I want them to get credit for all they do.
  • Test number 3: Do the words sound like your client? Are those their preferred choices? Do they reflect their philosophy? Did I use their industry’s jargon correctly?

Yes, there are usually minor changes we generally fix on the spot.

Notice how high I set the bar for myself to deliver more than a great résumé. At every stage—from information gathering, to writing, to proofing—I never lost sight of the experience my clients would have when they used the document I prepared.

When you write a résumé, give all your clients more than a Word document. Provide them with keys to memorable job seeking experiences and a great career.

Isn’t that where quality resides?

What Thrive Reminded Me About Professional Development

Written by Scott Gardner on . Posted in Blog, Business Development, Career Coaching, Résumé Writing.

Coming out of PARWCC Thrive 2026, one of the things I kept thinking about was how easy it is to let professional development become something we intend to do rather than something we actually make time for. Most of us are busy serving clients, running businesses, managing deadlines, and keeping up with the work already in front of us. It is very easy to convince yourself that experience alone will keep you sharp. Then you spend a few days around other people doing similar work, and you are reminded how much value there is in hearing how someone else thinks through the same problems.

AI was naturally part of a lot of the conversations this year, but what interested me was how quickly those discussions moved beyond the technology itself. People were talking about how they use it, where it helps, where it creates problems, how clients are using it, and what all of that means for resume writers and career coaches. There seemed to be less energy around predicting whether AI would replace anyone and more interest in figuring out what better work looks like now that some parts of the process have become easier. I found that much more useful.

That conversation also reinforced something I have been thinking about in my own work. If AI can help someone improve a sentence, organize information, or create a respectable first draft, then our value cannot rest entirely on producing cleaner language. Much of the work was never there anyway. It lives in helping someone understand what they have done, what matters most, what direction makes sense next, and how to talk about their experience in a way that actually sounds like them. A good conversation with another practitioner can sharpen how you approach that work in ways that another tool, template, or prompt probably will not.

That is really what professional development gives us when it is done well. It gets us outside our own habits for a while. Someone asks a question differently than we would have. Someone has a process we had never considered. Someone challenges an assumption we have carried for years without realizing it. None of that requires abandoning what already works. Sometimes the value is simply coming home with one better question to ask a client, one idea worth testing, or one belief about the profession that deserves another look.

I left Thrive with plenty of notes, ideas, and conversations I am still thinking through, but the larger takeaway was simpler. This profession changes too quickly for any of us to rely on what we already know for very long. Technology will keep moving. Hiring will keep shifting. Clients will keep bringing us new problems that do not fit neatly into the last playbook. Staying good at this work requires more than keeping up. It requires staying connected to people who make us think harder about how we do it.

What is the Unique Value of a Career Services Professional?

Written by Lili Foggle on . Posted in Blog, CIC.

I have been thinking about where the unique value of a career-services professional sits now, when AI can produce so much of what we have traditionally handed to clients. If we define our value by the information we give, the content we create, or the deliverable we produce, we’re competing directly with AI. I don’t think that’s where our greatest value is.

Clients hire us because they want a result, whether that’s the job, the promotion, or the career move. But we don’t control those outcomes. What we can do is lead clients through changes that increase their capacity to get the result they want. Think of it this way: I hire a personal trainer because I want to play tennis again, not because I want to do exercises. The exercises build my capacity; playing tennis is the receipt of that change.

A job offer is the receipt of the transformational work we’ve done with a client. If we want to distinguish our value from what AI offers, we need to understand how we create that transformation and design for it with structure and intention.

And we can use decades of research to inform how we do that.

Create Learning Experiences

Information alone doesn’t build confidence or mastery. Clients don’t feel confident about interviewing because they learned about interviewing; they feel confident once they’ve had successful experiences interviewing. Psychologist Albert Bandura’s research on self- efficacy supports this: people who learn through direct experience develop stronger belief in their own capability than people who only observe or receive information.

There’s a helpful model here from learning science: Michelene Chi and Ruth Wylie’s ICAP framework, which sorts learning activities by what the learner is actually doing. High-engagement interactive activities, such as roleplays in which clients respond and adapt to another person, are predicted to produce deeper learning than low-engagement passive activities like reading or listening. When we don’t include high engagement active learning activities in our work with clients, we miss an opportunity to build their capacity. We increase our clients’ learning, and their confidence, when we look for places in our process where the client gets to act, choose, claim, discover, or practice, rather than just receive information.

Cultivate a Strong Bond

Many of us are certified as coaches, but our field doesn’t have an agreed-upon standard for what that means in the relationship we build with clients. Psychologist Edward Bordin’s working alliance model, developed in 1979, offers one, and it has been validated as specifically in career counseling: a 2016 systematic review of 17 studies by Susan Whiston and colleagues found working alliance to be a consistent predictor of client outcomes.

The working alliance model rests on three things: agreement on the goal, agreement on the tasks that get you there, and the bond between practitioner and client. All three need to be present. You can have a great bond and agreed-upon goals, but if there is no agreement on the task – for example, the client isn’t doing the work between sessions – the working alliance is weak. You can also have clear goals and tasks and still fail if there’s no bond, no sense of safety and trust.

That bond is critical to our work because transformation asks clients to take a risk. They may have to admit what they don’t know, try something they might fail at, or reconsider something they’ve believed about themselves for years. Those are vulnerable moments, and our instinct in those moments is often to jump in and fix, solve, or reassure. Research suggests that the better response is to slow down and make room for the client to create
their own insights. Adult-learning theorist Jack Mezirow, whose work is foundational to how we understand transformation, called this moment “critical reflection”; it’s the moment when someone examines assumptions and beliefs they may never have questioned before. Critical reflection is work only the client can do – we cannot do it for them. Our job is to create enough safety and space for it to happen.

Measure the Transformation

When transformation happens, it leaves evidence. Something changes in what a client says, chooses, believes, or does. But in my experience, few coaches make a practice of looking for that evidence. And I strongly believe that we should.

I’ve noticed that many of us default to one of two measures to assess whether our coaching is effective. We look at whether the client got the job, which is an outcome we don’t fully control. Or we look at satisfaction reports, such as testimonials, reviews and ad hoc client feedback, that tell us whether the client liked working with us. Both are good to know. But neither tells us whether something in the client changed. Proving that change
requires a different kind of measurement: asking the same thing before and after, in the same words. That might be a client’s confidence in a specific skill, their belief about their own qualifications, or how often they take a specific action.

The distinction between client satisfaction and client transformation is easy to blur. A client can give you a fabulous testimonial and still not have changed anything about how they think or act. If you want to know whether your work created movement, you have to measure the movement itself, not only the client’s reaction to it.

There is an ethical side to this as well. The PARWCC Code of Ethics is clear that certified coaches don’t promise, guarantee, or even imply outcomes we don’t control when marketing our services. We can’t ethically claim a client will land four interviews in four weeks, or a new job offer in three months. But we can measure, and ethically share, what change they experienced through working with us, and that’s a much stronger and more
honest story than promising results we don’t control.

A Question for Our Own Work

Here is the question I would ask every career services professional: what will be different about this client after working with you? If the answer is only that they will have a document, then we have produced a deliverable, and that is exactly where we compete directly with AI.

If the answer is that they will be able to say, do, or believe something they could not before, then we have designed for transformation. Résumé writers, coaches, interview specialists, and brand strategists come from different corners of career services, but the question applies to all of us. As career professionals, we assess where our clients are, envision where they could be, and apply the judgment and adaptation within a human relationship to get them there. We are all transformation leaders.

Your Credentials Are Impressive. But Who Are You Impressing?

Written by Jay Block on . Posted in Blog, CEMP.

After 35+ years writing for PARW and PARWCC’s Spotlight (since 1990), I will conclude my contributions at the end of 2026. This is the second of three departing articles.

I have a suggestion for résumé writers, career coaches, LinkedIn experts, employment strategists, and everyone else who earns a living helping people find work.

For a few minutes  or, hopefully, longer – stop looking at your website. Stop looking at your credentials, certifications, awards, and testimonials. Stop focusing on proprietary processes, résumé samples, LinkedIn statistics, acronyms, algorithms, AI prompts, branding statements, and the 17 reasons somebody should work with you.

Instead, take a deep look at the person on the other side of the screen: the job seeker.  Because many practitioners have lost sight of them – at least at a deep emotional level.

This may sound ridiculous, even a bit condescending. But hear me out. Then decide whether there is something important here – or whether I should head out to pasture at a faster rate.

Your Entire Profession Exists to Serve Job Seekers

Here is the challenge: Invest 30 minutes and take an open-minded tour through the career services marketplace –  LinkedIn, Facebook, websites, videos, and articles – and do it as an unemployed person, not as an industry practitioner.

You may find it exhausting.

One résumé writer tells you your résumé must be one page. Another says two. Another says length doesn’t matter. One expert says never use an objective. Another says you need a branding statement. Then someone else says personal branding has become overwhelming for job seekers.

One source says keywords are critical, while another insists they are overrated. Networking is the key to success, say many. Algorithmic matching is the future, say the futurists.

Apparently, the one thing everyone seems to agree on is that whatever job seekers are doing, it is wrong – or at least inadequate. Which, when you think about it, is a rather ingenious business model.

Meanwhile, the people you are trying to attract may be sitting at the kitchen table at 11:30 at night thinking: “Could somebody please just help me get a job?”

That is the person your marketing has to reach. Not your colleagues. Not the awards committee. Not the people who already know what all those letters after your name mean.

The job seeker. Start there.

“I know that,” you say.

“Yes,” I reply. But please, take the free 30-minute tour.

Welcome to the Trophy Case

Now let’s talk about how our industry markets itself.

Visit enough career professional websites and LinkedIn profiles and you will encounter an impressive display of credentials, certifications, affiliations, awards, speaking engagements, media appearances, accomplishments – and, of course, the inspirational quote of the day.

I understand why. You worked hard for those credentials. Your colleagues respect them. Professional associations recognize them. They can establish credibility.

But here is an uncomfortable question: How much does the frightened 52-year-old operations manager who was laid off last Tuesday care?  Or a 22 year old graduating from college, with a debt-load of debt and no job prospects lined up yet?

Probably less than you think. They may not know what the acronyms mean. They may not know the certifying organization. And if they encounter six practitioners with a gazillion initials after their names, they may wonder whether they accidentally wandered into an eye chart.

Credentials can matter. They can reassure. They can support credibility. But credentials are not the same thing as relevance. And when virtually everyone leads with them, they stop differentiating you anyway.

The point is not that credentials are worthless. The point is that job seekers should not have to decode your profession, its lingo, and your professional philosophy before they can determine whether you understand their problem – and can help solve it.

They are not shopping for a résumé.

They are not shopping for coaching.

They are shopping for a better future – and hoping you can help them get there.

This distinction matters. Yet much industry marketing still begins with: “Look at me: Here are my qualifications, my methodology, my experience, why I am different, and look – here are some pics of me speaking.”

Borrowing From Covey

Stephen Covey famously taught two of his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that belong together: “Begin with the end in mind” and “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

Career professionals might borrow both and adapt them:

Begin with the job seeker in mind.

Before writing a website, LinkedIn post, advertisement, newsletter, email campaign, or sales page, ask: What is this person experiencing emotionally? What are they afraid of? What are they confused about? What do they desperately want to know? What problem, if solved, could substantially improve their life?

And most importantly: What do they need from me right now?

Those questions produce very different marketing. When you seek first to understand job seekers from their emotional perspective – not yours – you earn the right to be heard. And keep in mind: buying decisions are often emotional before they are rationalized intellectually.

Instead of:

I am an award-winning, nationally certified résumé pro with expertise in ATS optimization and executive branding…

Try:

You have good experience. You know you’ve contributed. But right now, you’re having trouble explaining your value in a way employers understand. That’s easily fixable.

Now the job seeker is listening.

The first statement tells them what you know. The second tells them that you know them.

That is more than a marketing distinction. It is a human one.

Job Seekers Don’t Enter Your World – You Enter Theirs

Professionals naturally think in professional language. Our industry talks about value propositions, personal branding, transferable competencies, ATS optimization, networking strategies, digital footprints, interview narratives, and career transition methodologies.

Fine.

Those terms may be useful to practitioners. But nobody wakes up at 3:00 in the morning thinking: “My God, I need a more compelling value proposition.”  And if they do, they probably need a different kind of professional.

They think: What if I don’t find something? How long can I afford this? Am I too old? Why aren’t employers responding? Was I really as valuable as I thought I was? What am I supposed to do next?

That is the conversation already taking place in the job seeker’s head.

Enter that conversation.

Remember the scene in My Cousin Vinny where Lisa is concerned about getting married and Vinny explodes under the weight of everything he is dealing with? He has a judge threatening to throw him in jail, somebody trying to fight him for $200, slaughtered pigs, loud whistles, no sleep, no money, a dress-code problem, two innocent kids charged with murder – and now Lisa wants to discuss their biological clocks and marriage.

His basic message is: Could we possibly pile one more thing on top of everything I am already dealing with?

That is often what job seekers are experiencing. 

Their résumé may be only one problem. Their real problem may be fear, uncertainty, identity, money, rejection, family pressure, age, technology, confidence – and not knowing what to do next.

Try the Stranger Test

Here is a simple experiment that most people probably will not do.

Show your website to six to eight people who know absolutely nothing about the career services profession.

Don’t explain anything. Give them 60 seconds – no more. Then ask:

“If you had suddenly lost your job, what on this page would make you feel that this person understands what you’re going through and could help you?”

Notice I did not ask: “Were you impressed?” or “What did you like about it?”

Those are very different questions.

A professional website can be extremely impressive and yet completely unpersuasive. A LinkedIn post can demonstrate enormous expertise and provide little comfort, clarity, or direction to a prospective client.

Less Noise. More Humanity.

The job search has never been emotionally easy. Now AI, changing hiring practices, and an avalanche of conflicting advice have made it even noisier.

And the Internet has ensured that for every career expert confidently telling job seekers what they absolutely must do, another expert is confidently telling them the opposite.

Perhaps your contribution should not be more noise.  Perhaps it should be clarity.  Maybe your marketing should make people feel less overwhelmed rather than more impressed.

Maybe the first objective of a résumé writer’s website, LinkedIn profile, or post should not be proving that the practitioner understands résumés. And career coach marketing should not begin by showcasing the coach.

Both should begin by demonstrating that the practitioner understands the human being who needs help – the person who may be frightened, frustrated, hurting, embarrassed, angry, confused, or simply tired of trying to figure it all out alone.

In an increasingly noisy, automated, AI-driven marketplace, where job seekers will have more free and inexpensive tools than ever, understanding the human being on the other side of the screen, and clearly demonstrating why your help is worth paying for, may become one of the most powerful competitive advantages you have.

So before you show them your credentials, methodology, certifications, expertise, awards, or philosophies, show them something far more important:

That you understand them.

Because in a world where expertise is increasingly available everywhere –  and increasingly available free – being understood may become more valuable than being impressed.

Begin with the job seeker in mind.

It’s Okay

Written by Diane Hudson on . Posted in Blog, Career Coaching.

As a career coach, I provide comfort, empathy, and motivation to my job-seeking clients. 

I offer solace when they feel discouraged, dejected, or ghosted after submitting resumes with no response. Or when they feel disillusioned after an interview because they were not selected, or when they are passed over for an eagerly anticipated promotion. Or when they feel burned out by their employer, commute, or other work-life balance struggles. Or when they receive a “pink slip.”

Job seekers carry emotions and real-life circumstances into job search and career management. 

As my clients’ Chief Motivational Officer (CMO), I empower them by reminding them it’s okay not to be Okay. It is a normal part of job loss, career management decision-making, and grief in the employment process. 

As a CMO, I also offer empowerment, encouragement, and confidence as job seekers prepare for interviews, feel good about their career decisions, or engage in active, energizing, career action planning. 

One of the compliments I receive the most often from my job-seeking clients is that I provide them with confidence to move to the next phase in the job search: it may range from taking the first step to submit a resume, attending a relationship-building event to network, reaching out to a contact via social media, preparing for or engaging in an interview, making decisions about which job to accept, learning how to negotiate a salary and benefits, or speaking to a supervisor about next steps to attain a promotion. 

More than 20 of my clients have attained their dream jobs in the past couple of months. Others secured new employment as a stepping-stone to future dream jobs. Some struggled during the process, feeling dejected after many “rejection” texts and emails. Others spent countless hours preparing for an interview. Some learned to use AI to develop resumes and prepare for interviews. Some initially struggled to determine their career direction. 

They worked hard to prepare professional resumes, practice simulated interviews, and strengthen their social media profiles. All of these clients credited me with helping them gain the confidence to move through the career management plans we prepared together. 

When someone faltered, I told them that it was okay not to be Okay. I acknowledged their feelings. Putting on my career coaching hat, I asked how we could rework what happened, for example, lots of ghosting after applying for many positions, not being selected after being one of two for the final round of interviews, or not getting a promotion.

Regrouping, I ask questions and provide challenges:

  • What could you have done differently? Tell me about it.
  • What can you change going forward? How can you make that happen?
  • How long have you been in ‘stuck’ mode?
  • How can I best help you? Pick one issue to start – the most pressing for you, and let’s pull it apart. 

Brainstorming with my clients to cement commitment and accountability, I then ask more questions:

  • Do we need to adjust your resume for various positions? Let’s review a couple of sample target jobs and see if we can figure out what is going on. Perhaps your resume and target jobs are not aligned. Do we need to develop new or different highly impactful accomplishment stories?
  • Have you engaged in networking and talking to humans? Can we make a list of opportunities to speak with people, e.g., association meetings, alumni meetings, job fairs, your holiday card list, faith-based groups, industry-specific groups, and others? What ideas do you have? How and when can you reach out?
  • What are you willing to do to get out of stuck mode? Provide me with a list of three ideas. 
  • Have you considered skills-based learning?
  • If you have already applied to several hundred jobs with zero response, do you think you need to consider a different pathway? Are you willing to try something new or different from what you have been doing?

 

Career Coaches are Career Architects & Career Strategists

We put career coaching into a personalized context. By speaking our clients’ language and living through corporate jobs, family, layoffs, health issues, and more, we understand and can help clients navigate finances, family responsibilities, workplace politics, culture, identity, health constraints, and values. We provide discernment and insightful judgment when clients compare job offers, opportunities, career paths, or salary options. There may not be a single right or wrong answer in the decision-making process; however, the answer must feel comfortable and agreeable to our clients. 

We know that personal connections are still the most effective job search strategy. Who you know, and who knows who you know, is key to getting introductions to job interviews. We coach clients to discern between options, opportunities, and decisions.  

Internal recruiters work within their organizations to recruit people who employees already know and can recommend. When I worked at Northrop Corporation, my colleague received a generous bonus for recommending me to the company for a position in HR to set up the company’s reference check program and serve as an employment specialist, which led to a position as an internal recruiter. Also, I received a bonus for recommending a colleague from a previous job. Before interviewing her, my boss spoke with me at length about my colleague’s skill set, personality, drive, and abilities. 

Some companies focus solely on internal recruitment to promote growth and employee loyalty. Some companies that focus on internal recruitment include Procter & Gamble, Zappos, Google, Salesforce, and others. Internal recruitment often leads to professional development and leadership opportunities. However, there is an argument for external hiring: new, fresh ideas. External recruiters are hired to find potential candidates who aren’t even looking for jobs. 

LinkedIn networking statistics show that 85% of jobs are filled through networking, and referrals are 50% more likely to land interviews. Strategic networking beats job boards for landing opportunities in 2026.

We need to help job seekers shift their mindset, so they view relationship-building and networking as career-management tools. 

 

Navigating the Market

Career management is not easy. However, with a career coaching plan, empathy, and motivation, job seekers can build the confidence to navigate the employment market successfully over time and land fulfilling jobs. 

Is This a Crossroads or a Through Path?

Written by Doug Phares on . Posted in Blog, Business Development.

I, like many fine people, grew up in Chicago. And as my family is tired of hearing, I love their grid street pattern. Most of the streets are at a right angle with a rational number or naming scheme and traffic systems in place to make an easy transition from small to medium to big streets.

The system works well, and I can attest that it’s great for a new driver. In the neighborhoods where I learned the ropes, I quickly noticed that Chicago had stop signs on slow street intersections to control the flow of traffic. 

For me, that was a no-go. I preferred using the through streets and keep things moving. My sister, on the other hand, preferred the slower, more controlled streets because they were safer.

Going on the faster streets, I quickly learned that accidents were more common there because people weren’t observing the rules or following speed limits. What I learned was there are paths you can navigate that have friction, or controls, where you stop and wait for input, versus pathways that let you move through a system without those controls, or at least with fewer. 

One approach offers speed, the other safety. And a lot of organizations take one of these two paths. People move quickly with a drive to get things done now, which can be highly efficient or reckless, depending on your perspective.

And others prefer to sit and wait at the intersection until the crossing guard gives them the go ahead. That could mean waiting a long time, but things are safe and comfortable, and those aren’t nothing.

For a lot of organizations, management and senior leadership become the crossing guards. You are the intersection controls that determines the speed of “traffic” in your organization. And just about any organization can benefit from a Chicago-style grid system.

Some areas need a checkpoint, because sometimes the best solution is to slow down and think for a moment. On other streets, you need free-flowing traffic where people can complete essential tasks and just keep going.

For years, my advice to younger managers has been not to be a stoplight. Don’t build your system in such a way that you have to control all of the traffic and everything requires your permission to move through the intersection. 

If you do take that approach, you turn from a leader into an intersection apparatus for approving movement. Organizations don’t function well that way, and I’d bet that there are a lot of things going on every day that don’t require your direct involvement or oversight.

In my experience, insecurity is the number one reason that people put themselves in these positions. If that sounds like you, I’d encourage you to seriously consider the reason that you want to personally approve anything. Are you pursuing a sense of importance or trying to keep busy? If so, it’s time to make a change in how you manage.

The opposite can also be true, however, and organizations suffer when there is no traffic guard in place. The faster streets let too many things get started without check-ins to ensure they’re finished, and the open path quickly fills up with collisions until nobody is getting anywhere.

If you’re using a system without any controls in place, you’ll get as little done as the organization that’s eternally waiting for the light to turn green. 

You want an efficient system that gets traffic moving at a good pace, maybe a bit faster than the speed limit, if your tastes are like mine. Too little friction and things go off the rails, but if management functions solely as a traffic guard, you’re not adding value or safety. You’re only adding control.

More Job Postings, Fewer Hires: What September’s Labor Market Means for Career Professionals

Written by stephanie on . Posted in Blog, Business Development.

October 2026

For career coaches and résumé writers, the September labor market presented a familiar contradiction. Job postings showed signs of improvement, unemployment remained relatively low, and employers continued to report millions of available positions. Yet qualified job seekers were still struggling to secure interviews, navigate lengthy hiring processes, and turn promising opportunities into offers.

The latest employment data helps explain why.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), employers added just 29,000 jobs in September 2026, following a revised gain of 133,000 in August. The unemployment rate edged up to 4.2%, while revisions to July and August reduced previously reported employment gains by a combined 60,000 jobs.

Meanwhile, Indeed Hiring Lab reported that annual job posting growth turned positive for the first time in nearly four years. Although that development offers some encouragement, the increase in advertised opportunities has not yet translated into a sustained hiring recovery.

For career professionals, this distinction matters. Our clients do not simply need to know how many jobs are available. They need to understand where employers are actually hiring, what skills organizations are prioritizing, and how to compete when companies are increasingly cautious about making hiring decisions.

The September data reinforces an important reality: the labor market is showing signs of improvement, but job seekers are not necessarily experiencing that improvement.

The September Jobs Report: Growth Without Momentum

The September Employment Situation report showed that nonfarm payroll employment increased by only 29,000 jobs, significantly below economists’ expectations. The unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.2%, representing approximately 7 million unemployed Americans.

The revisions to previous months are equally important. August’s initially reported gain of 162,000 jobs was revised downward to 133,000, and July’s figures were also reduced. Together, these revisions removed 60,000 jobs from earlier estimates.

These changes reinforce the importance of looking beyond individual monthly reports. Although August appeared to signal a meaningful rebound, September’s weaker performance suggests that employers remain hesitant to expand their workforces consistently.

For career coaches, this is an opportunity to help clients understand that a difficult job search is not necessarily a reflection of their qualifications or professional value. Even highly experienced candidates may face longer searches when employers are creating relatively few new positions.

However, understanding the broader market should not become an excuse for abandoning accountability. Our responsibility is to help clients distinguish between challenges caused by economic conditions and those that can be addressed through better targeting, stronger professional positioning, or improved interviewing strategies.

A Low-Hire, Low-Fire Market Continues to Define Employment

One of the most important trends of 2026 has been the persistence of a low-hire, low-fire labor market.

According to the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, employers reported approximately 7.1 million job openings in August, while hiring remained relatively unchanged at 5.2 million. Voluntary quits totaled 3.1 million, and layoffs and discharges remained relatively low at 1.6 million.

These numbers suggest that employers are generally retaining existing employees but remain cautious about expanding their teams. Workers, meanwhile, appear less willing to leave established positions without greater confidence in their next opportunity.

This creates a challenging environment for job seekers. Fewer voluntary departures mean fewer vacancies created through normal turnover. Slower business expansion limits newly created positions. And when employers do decide to hire, they may have more candidates available and less urgency to make a selection.

For résumé writers, this environment increases the importance of clearly communicating a candidate’s value. A résumé that documents responsibilities without demonstrating accomplishments may struggle to compete against applicants with similar qualifications.

For career coaches, the implications extend beyond application materials. Clients need realistic expectations about hiring timelines, thoughtful networking strategies, and an understanding that securing a new position may require more deliberate effort than it did during the hiring surge of 2021 and 2022.

Job Postings Are Improving, But Hiring Has Not Caught Up

Perhaps the most encouraging development in September came from Indeed Hiring Lab.

Its September labor market snapshot reported that the Indeed Job Postings Index reached 103.5 as of September 18, approximately 3% above its pre-pandemic baseline. Job postings increased 1.5% over the previous month and 0.7% year over year, marking the first positive annual growth in nearly four years.

The improvement was also becoming more widespread. Approximately 60% of occupational sectors had posting levels above their pre-pandemic baseline, compared with 51% at the beginning of June.

However, another statistic provides important context. Indeed’s index of newly posted positions stood at 94.0, approximately 6% below its pre-pandemic baseline.

This suggests that while the overall number of advertised positions has improved, the flow of newly advertised opportunities remains comparatively weak.

For career professionals, this distinction should influence how we help clients evaluate job opportunities. A higher number of postings does not automatically mean a greater number of active hiring decisions. Candidates may encounter positions that have remained advertised for extended periods, roles with lengthy approval processes, or employers that are exploring the talent market without moving quickly toward an offer.

Rather than encouraging clients to increase their application volume indiscriminately, we should help them identify opportunities where there is stronger evidence of active hiring. Recently posted positions, company growth announcements, internal referrals, recruiter engagement, and direct conversations with hiring managers can all provide useful context.

The goal is not simply to find more jobs to apply for. It is to identify opportunities where a candidate’s qualifications align with an employer’s current business needs.

Industry Trends Reinforce the Importance of Targeted Searches

September’s employment gains were uneven across industries, reinforcing the idea that national labor market statistics rarely tell the complete story for an individual job seeker.

Health care added approximately 17,000 jobs, continuing its role as a relatively consistent source of employment growth. Construction gained 11,000 positions, while manufacturing added approximately 9,000 jobs.

Other sectors experienced declines. Government employment fell by approximately 17,000 jobs, information lost 10,000, and financial activities declined by 7,000.

For career professionals, these differences should shape conversations about industry targeting and transferable skills.

A client with operations management experience, for example, may be concentrating exclusively on technology companies despite stronger opportunities in health care, manufacturing, or other industries. A finance professional may need to consider organizations outside traditional financial services. A project manager may discover that their experience in process improvement, stakeholder management, and organizational change applies to a broader range of employers than their previous industry.

This does not mean encouraging clients to pursue every growing sector. Industry transitions require thoughtful consideration of transferable skills, employer requirements, compensation, and career goals.

However, it does mean that career coaches should be helping clients evaluate where their experience can create value, rather than allowing previous job titles or industries to unnecessarily limit their options.

For résumé writers, that may require repositioning a client’s experience around capabilities that translate across industries. Leadership, operational efficiency, strategic planning, financial management, process improvement, and organizational transformation can all be relevant beyond the environments in which those skills were originally developed.

Long-Term Unemployment Requires More Intentional Coaching

One of the more concerning developments in September was the continued number of Americans experiencing extended unemployment.

Approximately 1.9 million people had been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer, representing 27.1% of all unemployed workers. Another 5.8 million people outside the labor force reported wanting employment.

These figures are particularly relevant for career coaches because long-term unemployment often introduces challenges that extend beyond the mechanics of a job search.

Clients who have spent months searching may begin questioning their professional identity, second-guessing their qualifications, or becoming increasingly discouraged by repeated rejection. Some may broaden their searches so dramatically that they lose focus, while others may hesitate to pursue opportunities because they anticipate another disappointing outcome.

Career professionals have an important role in helping clients maintain perspective while evaluating what is and is not working.

Rather than measuring progress exclusively through job offers, coaches can help clients assess leading indicators such as networking conversations, recruiter responses, interview invitations, interview-to-offer conversion, and the quality of opportunities being pursued.

These measures can help identify where adjustments are needed.

If a client is submitting numerous applications without receiving interviews, the issue may involve targeting, qualifications, or résumé positioning. If interviews are occurring but offers are not, the focus may need to shift toward interview preparation, communication, or demonstrating alignment with employer needs.

A longer search does not automatically indicate a flawed strategy. However, an extended period without meaningful progress should prompt an intentional review rather than simply repeating the same activities.

Breathe.

Written by Margaret Phares on . Posted in Blog.

Years ago when our kids were young, my husband decided he wanted to buy a sailboat. Did I, his life partner, know how to sail? I did not. (I don’t really even swim.) But he was enthusiastic and he made a good point that our kids were growing up very quickly and time together for us as a family was slipping away. The opportunity to trap the three of them in a boat on Lake Erie with little cell signal was appealing!

He found an acceptably sound used sailboat and we set about learning to sail it. By which I mean, he learned to sail it, I spent a lot of time shrieking. “WE’RE GOING TO HIT THAT. WHICH LINE? WHEN DID THE DOCK MOVE?”   

After several weeks of sweaty, damp, filthy efforts, my husband looked at me and said, “If you could just not panic first this would go better.”  

For me, sailing was baffling and came with risk. Panic seemed like the right answer.

Our current chaotic job market, AI, fraud, and capricious hiring trends can seem baffling and come with risk.   

BUT!

Panic is rarely a good sailing strategy OR a good career strategy.

Sometimes, the smartest thing we can do is stop, take a breath, and figure out where we actually are before deciding where to go next. Coaches across our industry often advise clients to stop, breathe and assess. Giving that advice is both practical and useful. Taking it may not be. Résumé writers, career coaches, interview coaches, and other professionals in our industry are navigating a great deal of uncertainty, too. Clients are worried. Businesses are changing. AI tools are multiplying. New competitors are appearing seemingly overnight. And we’re all trying to determine what the future of our work will look like.  

It’s easy to feel that we must immediately master every new tool, reinvent every service, redesign our websites, launch new offerings, and post on every social media platform known to humanity.

Preferably before lunch.

But let’s breathe for a moment.

Not every new trend requires an immediate response. Not every new tool deserves a place in your practice. And not every change means you need to start over.

Instead, take an honest look at how you serve clients.  

What are your clients asking for? Where are you getting results? Which services get results and which ones consume more time than they’re worth? What are your strengths? Where would additional training or a new skill make a meaningful difference?

Your ability to listen, ask the right questions, recognize a person’s strengths, exercise sound judgment, and help someone navigate a difficult transition remains enormously important. We don’t have to reject change to protect our value. We need to understand change well enough to use it wisely. Take a breath. Assess your practice. Identify the next right step. As an association, we have a responsibility to do the same thing.

At PARWCC, our work is about helping career professionals grow, adapt, and serve their clients well. That means being willing to evolve while remaining grounded in the principles that make professional service matter.

We can embrace innovation without abandoning experience. We can question old assumptions without dismissing everything that came before. And we can prepare for the future without pretending we know exactly what it will bring.

Here’s what I want us all to remember this month.

  1. When things feel overwhelming, pause before you panic.
  2. When something changes, assess before you react.
  3. When a strategy stops working, adjust before you abandon everything.

And when you aren’t sure what comes next, give yourself permission to figure it out one step at a time. A favorite tiktok-er I follow finishes his videos by saying, “Unclench your jaw, you aren’t in trouble.”  

You are not alone in a sea of risk and panic.  You are one of a membership of professionals.  We’ve got each other.  And just like on our little family sailboat, we’ll get where we need to go.  

Warmly,

Margaret

P.S. Shameless plug – if you think more training is appropriate for your practice, PARWCC programs ALL have a self-study option that you can take when sitting in a live cohort doesn’t make sense for you!

News from PARWCC!

Written by PARWCC Leadership Team on . Posted in Blog, Weekly Newsletter.

 

News from PARWCC!

Written by PARWCC Leadership Team on . Posted in Blog, Weekly Newsletter.